freed by pope and king from any episcopal or justiciary power and with
the right of electing its own abbot, was, like all monastic bodies,
always jealous of the encroachments of bishops, and regarded secular
priests as inferior in every respect. The opinion of the laity who saw
both sides may be gathered from Chaucer's picture of a "poore Persoun
of a toun." He knew well enough how the revenue, which should have
gone to the parish, its parson and its poor, went to fill the coffers
of rich abbeys, to build enormous churches and furnish them
sumptuously, to provide retinues of lazy knights for the train of
abbot or bishop, and to prosecute lawsuits in the papal courts.

But when bishop and abbot were one and the same, the monks still
claimed the right of election, and so for generations the history of
the diocese is a tale of strife and bickering, and how it was that
pope, king or archbishop did not perceive that it was a case of
hopeless incompatibility of temper, or, perceiving it, did not
dissolve the union or get it dissolved is difficult to see. Probably
the injury done to religion weighed but lightly against vested
interests and the power of the purse. The Monastery was, however, as
Dugdale says, "the chief occasion of all the succeeding wealth and
honour that accrued to Coventry"; for though the original Nunnery may
have been planted in an existing settlement, or have attracted one
about it, the greater wealth of the Abbey, its right to hold markets,
and all its own varied requirements would quickly increase and bring
prosperity to such a township, as it did at Bury St. Edmunds,
Burton-on-Trent and many another.

In the thirteenth century the priory was in financial straits, through
being fined by Henry III for disobedience. Later, however, he granted
further privileges to the monks, among them that of embodying the